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James Simmons (1933-2001)

Simmons is a one-off, highly skilled and versatile, a genuinely accessible writer, who speaks from the life endured or enjoyed by many.  Poems 1956-1986 deserves to be widely and repeatedly read.

— Sean O’Brien

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James SimmonsJames Simmons was born in Derry in 1933 and died in County Donegal in 2001. He taught in universities in Ireland, England and Africa and was Writer-in-Residence at Queen’s University, Belfast. His collections of poems included Late but in Earnest, Energy to Burn, Constantly Singing and From the Irish.

Founder editor of The Honest Ulsterman and author of Seán O’Casey (1983), he released a number of LPs of his own songs. With his wife, Janice Fitzpatrick Simmons, he founded The Poet’s House, first in Islandmagee, County Antrim, and then in Falcarragh, County Donegal.

Poems 1956-1986 was published by The Gallery Press in 1986.

Poems 1956-1986

‘Simmons is a one-off, highly skilled and versatile, a genuinely accessible writer, who speaks from the life endured or enjoyed by many. Poems 1956-1986 deserves to be widely and repeatedly read.’ — Sean O’Brien

 

This book includes more than one hundred of James Simmons’ poems, among them the ballad, ‘Claudy’, which has entered the repertoire of folk music.

€13.90 pb

 

Recent Gallery Press Titles

Aidan Carl MatthewsAidan Carl Mathews was born in 1956 and educated at UCD, TCD, and Stanford University. He has published three collections of poetry, Windfalls, Minding Ruth (Gallery, 1983) and According to the Small Hours (1998). He has published short stories: Adventures in a Bathyscope (which was shortlisted for the GPA Award), Lipstick on the Host and Charlie Chaplin's Wishbone (2016, Lilliput) and a novel, Muesli at Midnight. Other awards include an Irish Times Award, Patrick Kavanagh Award, Macauley Fellowship and an Academy of American Poets Award.

His plays include Exit/Entrance (Gallery 1990), The Diamond Body, The Antigone, a new version of The House of Bernarda Alba and Communion (2003). He edited Immediate Man: Cuimhní ar Chearbhall Ó Dálaigh. He works as a radio drama producer in RTE.

Aidan Carl Mathews Titles

Minding Ruth

Aidan Mathews’ first volume Windfalls, distinguished in itself, gave promise for the future. Minding Ruth fulfils, if it does not indeed go beyond the expectations roused by that first volume. — Seamus Deane

€10.00 pb
€15.50 hb